


Our Lady of Perpetual Victory

by harrietscats



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adaptation, Canon Rewrite, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-08-08 11:58:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7757011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harrietscats/pseuds/harrietscats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Lady of Perpetual Victory, your praises I sing!<br/>Gladly do I accept the gift invaluable<br/>Of your glory! Let me be the vessel<br/>Which bears the Light of your promise<br/>To the world expectant."<br/>Exaltations 1:1</p><p>Asdethara Lavellan was happy with her position as First. There was no doubt that she would inherit Keeper Deshanna Istimaethoriel's position. She was already called by the respected melin'ha gifted to all clan members who have earned the right. She traded with the shems, entertained their children with motes made of starlight, healed their sick when called upon. She did not want to go to their Conclave, did not care what the cost might be to Clan Lavellan. But she could not deny the request from her Keeper. </p><p>"Dareth shiral, da'len," she had said. "I pray you bring us glad tidings from the shem Conclave."</p><p>The tidings Asdethara Hallavarmelan Lavellan bring are anything but glad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "Truly, the gods are angered"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In sorrow, the crowds dispersed. The army of the faithful  
> Turned southward, to the lands from which they had come.  
> The legion of Tevinter hid inside the walls of their city  
> And watched the sky in fear.  
> \--Apotheosis 2:13

The Seeker was on her way to the Divine’s side, up that pilgrim’s path from Haven to the Temple of Sacred Ashes, when the sky rent itself in two. 

The sundering was a sudden thing. The Divine's Right Hand remembered directing a volley of lost apostates, the youngest just barely ten and far too young to have succeeded at her Harrowing, up a slightly more concealed path to the Temple. It was mostly out of fear for what the young, untested girl could do when cornered. One moment she was speaking with their leader—a recently Harrowed Enchanter of the Ostwick Circle—when an overbearing, permeating _wrongness_ soiled the air. At first, she believed it to be a subconscious revulsion to the untrained, untested mages she was in confines with.

Then, the ground trembled. The sky tore itself in two as easily as a child tears cloth in the midst of a tantrum. Except in this child rent the very fabric of reality.

So entrapped was she in the resulting carnage, the organizing of young Circle apostates and green Templar recruits fleeing the destruction, and the massing of Haven’s own paltry forces (the quickening of a plan long put into action), Cassandra did not hear the preliminary casualty report until Sister Nightingale all but forced the torn piece of parchment into her hands. 

The Right Hand of the Divine took one look at the report, and felt the earth beneath her feet crumble to nothing. 

“Leliana,” she said, voice thick and tremulous. Her voice had not been this weak since— 

The Divine’s Left Hand gave nothing away. Cassandra thought she saw the finest shimmer of tears in the woman’s eyes, but dismissed it as merely a trick of the light. 

“We’ve established a forward camp up on the Pilgrim’s Walk,” said Leliana, dismissing the casualty report as if it were nothing but air. Cassandra felt her marrow shudder with a grief so expansive, it nearly matched the sky’s sundering. “Chancellor Roderick has taken up… command there.” The sneer in Leliana’s voice was a decisive one. Cassandra matched it with a disgusted twitch of her lip. Loathe as she was to admit it, if what the report said was true, then the man was in charge. 

Cassandra tried not to shudder with the prospect of it. 

“And what do your scouts say?” the woman asked, peering at another report that was shoved in her hands by a fearful looking woman in patchwork armor. She was young, a pilgrim just recruited not two weeks prior. With a very quiet, “Excuse me, Lady Cassandra,” the woman all but bolted away, in the direction of the tear in the sky. Cassandra watched her go, silently praised her resilience and courage in the face of mortal terror, and turned her eyes back to the report, stamped with the Chantry’s seal. The scout who had written the missive was barely literate in Fereldene, but she knew enough Orleans to substitute the words accordingly. What she read made her pause, made her seek out Leliana’s more superior grasp of the Orlesian tongue. 

Rifts torn in the Fade, clusters of them closest to the ruins of the Temple of Sacred Ashes.

Demons brought to the mortal plane, full of rage and pride and fear, the last vestigial memories of their murdered host’s. 

Almost one thousand dead: Templars, mages, Chantry sisters and laymen. 

Most Holy Divine Justinia V, missing in the midst of it. Presumed her dead. 

One survivor. En route to Haven’s quaint Chantry.  

“Is this correct?” she asked, for what must have been the third time. “She came from the Fade itself?”

Leliana nodded, eyes finding the road leading up to the Temple of Sacred Ashes. It was bloated with pilgrims, with soldiers, with quarreling mages and Templars who, even now, could not pause in their strife. Bearing the Chantry’s sunburst, the Divine's Hands passively watched as two cloaked officers hauled a hooded figure between them, limp feet dragging in the mud. She had been chained with iron; her left hand crackled unstably with Fade energy. Cassandra’s nose wrinkled in disgust. Of course a mage was at the heart of this. 

“Bring her downstairs,” she barked, jerking her head behind her at the Chantry. “Leave her to rot.”

“She may have answers—” began Leliana. 

“ _Tsái skatá stis apantíseis tis._ Bring her downstairs and let. Her. Rot.” To the men holding the prisoner suspended between them, Cassandra spat: “Has she said why she has done it?”

One of the men, greener than the other, trembled beneath the Seeker’s wrathful gaze. “No, my lady,” he answered, voice trembling. “She mumbles, though, and burns with fever. The thing on her hand pains her.”

“What do I care if she is comfortable or not?” Cassandra bit out. “She must be interrogated. We must know—”

“She is no use to us dead,” said Leliana shortly. As if in acquiescence, the Fade mark on the young girl’s hand exploded with energy, bending her fingers, making them convulse as if possessed. The girl let out a pained moan in her unconsciousness, jerked in her captor’s hands as if seized. The hood slipped from her head, and Cassandra felt her eyes widen in shock. Tattoos lined the tops of her cheeks, the bridge of her nose, the crest of her forehead. Her hair was as white as snow, slightly disheveled, but still held in an artful array of twists and braids about her head, to cascade down her back in loose curls. The most damning identifier for this strange woman possessed of magic not of this world were the long, pointed ears that framed her inhuman, elfin face. 

“Dalish?” Cassandra asked. 

“Yes my Lady,” the older soldier said. 

“I was unaware that there was a Dalish envoy present at the Conclave.” She narrowed her eyes at Leliana, who arched an eyebrow in barely veiled surprise. 

The mark on the elf’s hand trembled with energy. In response, the elf mumbled in incoherent Elvish. To the untrained ear, it sounded like she was begging.

“You are right,” said Cassandra, watching the girl suffer. “She is no use to us dead.” There was a runner not three feet away, busy with correspondence from the forward camp. Cassandra marched over to her, grabbed her by her arm, and spun her. The girl shook terribly, dropped the sealed letters in the mud and snow. 

“The elven apostate. You know of him?”

The girl nodded, too dumbstruck to answer.

“Bring him to the Chantry’s cloisters. Let him know to keep the elf alive, or he dies with her.”

With a squeaky “Yes Lady Cassandra!”, the runner bolted off, up the hill towards the ruins of the Temple. 

“Take her downstairs, and post a guard on her,” Cassandra ordered the soldiers. “Let me know when she wakes, so I may question her.”

Beside her, Leliana scoffed.

“Question, or kill?”

Cassandra did not answer, for she did not know the answer herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on language: 
> 
> Unending thanks to the brilliant minds behind the Elvish Lexicon. Without you, this work would be garbage. As for the other languages in this work, I will be substituting parlance and curses with the more traditional, real-world based languages. For example:
> 
> Orlais (Orleans) - French   
> Nevarra (Nevarran) - Greek  
> Tevinter (Tevene) - Latin  
> Antiva (Antivan) - Spanish/Italian cognates 
> 
> Translations:
> 
> Tsái skatá stis apantíseis tis - Maker shit on her answers


	2. The Wrath of Heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The Liberator drew the blade at his side  
> And charged the pyre, the freedom of the Prophet before his eyes,  
> But from the legion came a storm of arrows  
> Blacker than night. And the disciple who had fought side by side  
> With the Lady fell, along with a hundred of his People."  
> \--Apotheosis 2:4

There had been an explosion.

No, that wasn’t quite right. There was no word in _Elvhen_ or Fereldan that could adequately describe the sheer release of pressure that had occurred between heartbeats. It was like the snap of a bone placed under too much strain, a fracturing of the very Veil between mortality and that which came after.

There had been an explosion, and then…

And then… 

Memory returned in fractures and fragments. The scent of her Keeper’s hair, the quiet, “ _Dareth shiral, da’len,_ ” the gentle woman had murmured oh so soft into the crest of her hair. The feel of the Fade pressing against her skin hard enough to leave phantom bruises, stress fractures of agony in the skin of the aether, singing discordant with the mana within her soul. 

And then… 

She woke with a sickening headache and what felt like fire burning through her hand. Everything pulsed hot and quick and she was certain she was going to die. The wince that came from the depths of her throat—a growl, in all seriousness—meant to be a scream, could have been a scream, but she tamped it down; she smelled _shem_ and _danger_ and _lyrium._ She was…

Dalish. Yes. That was what she was. 

Asdethara Lavellan. First to Clan Lavellan. Athdhea’ere’lan.

She vomited. It tasted of squirrel and mead. Beside her, someone cloaked in sickly sweet lyrium muttered “ _Fucking knife-ear_ ” and did nothing while she sputtered and gagged on her own sick. 

The door had opened; Asdethara looked at a pair of soft doeskin boots and chainmail tabards. Hollowly, she heard metal clank, felt someone at her back. What had happened between walking that cold path to the Conclave and now? Why was she being forced to kneel, hands clasped in what felt like enchanted iron? It burned her wrists, sent paralyzing tremors deep into her spine. 

With tear-blurred eyes, she rotated her left hand, unclenched her palms. As she watched, the pale skin of her palm vibrated with pain, with Fade-light; sickly green lines of poison lanced along the top of her palm, across the back of her hand, curled sharply down the soft, delicate skin of her wrist. The pain that accompanied it was blinding. 

Asdethara let out a sharp, aborted shriek. It _hurt._ She wanted it _gone._

“Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you,” whispered a woman in her ear; her breath was hot, snarling. Asdethara didn’t need to look at her to know she was furious, but _why?_ Asdethara counseled silence, in the stead of anger, or fear. She watched the woman pace again, as dangerous as a lion, around Asdethara’s bound form. The woman didn’t sound, nor did she look Orlesian. There was no Fereldan in her. She resembled no _shemlen_ of the Free Marches. She sounded like she belonged to the _shem_ villages to the very west of the Free Marches, where her clan trod sparingly.

Asdethara raised her head, kept it weakly supported by her slumped shoulder. Her hair had come loose from the plaits that kept them neat and restrained; half of it hung over her face like half-melting snow. 

( _Elvarman’elan,_ her age mates had called her—sometimes unkind, ofttimes not— _Elvarman’elan_. She had too many names for one barely of age; never was that a good omen). 

The woman circling her like a wolf gone mad was of an olive complexion, eyes hard and dark. There was a tiny, braided crown of hair wrapped around the circumference of her skull. Everything about her sang of Templar, but she herself didn’t seem to belong to the Order. 

Then again, what did she, a Dalish elf, know of Templars?

“The Conclave is destroyed,” snarled the not-Templar woman, “and everyone who attended is _dead._ ” Another dangerous circle around Asdethara. Another sickening pulse beneath her skin that had Asdethara gagging on nothing but the sensation of it. 

“Except for you.” This was said at an accusatory whisper. Asdethara looked from the not-Templar in her lyrium-less rage, to the woman in the chainmail tabards and doeskin boots and periwinkle headscarf. She recognized the broach clasping the headscarf to her uniform. A Chantry sister and a woman who should have been a Templar but wasn’t? 

She didn’t remember them…

_“Dareth shiral, da’len,” her Keeper had whispered into the crown of her hair in goodbye. “I pray you bring us good news from this Conclave.”_

A spy. She had been a spy for the Lavellans, lied to the shem worshippers at the feet of the temple dedicated to the charred remains of a woman long dead, and claimed to be a representative for the Dalish. _Arlise’sul’vhen._ The shem clerics had heard the phrase, recognized it only as _El’vhen,_ and admitted her without questions. 

Men would believe anything.

“…Dead?” whispered Asdethara, voice blistered with fear and confusion and pain ( _so much pain, why wouldn’t her hand stop throbbing?_ ). “What do you mean everyone’s dead?”

The not-Templar reached down, grabbed her burning-twisting-numb-shackled left hand. It vibrated, pulsed and crackled with Fade-light. Asdethara squinted at the brightness of it, hummed her discontent.

“Explain this,” spat the woman, letting Asdethara’s bound hands fall back to their place on her bent knees. Her lower body had grown numb; how long had she been kneeling on the cold, stone floor of the _shem_ place of prayer? Hours? Days?

“I can’t,” admitted Asdethara, fear cleaving her voice in two. 

“What do you mean, you _can’t?_ ” Again the woman circled, hand braced on the pommel of her sword. The Chantry sister followed, more reserved, more patient. 

Asdethara feared the sister more. 

“I don’t know what that thing is, or how it got there!” protested Asdethara, voice growing snappish. Confinement grated on her; call it an ancestral aversion.

The woman gripped her by the faded grey scarf wrapped around Asdethara’s neck and tugged. The soldiers on guard became more alert. Asdethara gagged as her breath cut off suddenly, the woman snarling in her face, scar along her jaw twisted with rage. 

“You’re lying,” she hissed, pulling tighter. Asdethara gasped for breath as if she were drowning, tried to summon the words to repel the woman: summon a blizzard, a bolt of thunder, _a stiff breeze,_ anything, to save her from this agent of Fen’Harel, for surely the god of tricks and lies was surely the cause of leading her astray. Maybe he didn’t like the flowers she had left his statue before she had left. The Dread Wolf was a fickle creature. 

 The sister surged forward as Asdethara’s gaze fluttered, oxygen gone, the peace of asphyxiation settling in. The Chantry woman wrenched the not-Templar away with a hand to her shoulder, and suddenly, there was air. It was as sweet as Mythal’s mercy, a precious gift of life. Asdethara felt tears gather in the corners of her eyes, part of relief, part of fear, as she inhaled shaking breaths.

“We need her, Cassandra,” Asdethara heard the sister say, her voice sweet and Orlesian. Whoever she was, she forced the other woman—Cassandra, noted Asdethara—into retreating, but her accusatory gaze never left Asdethara’s slumped form as she choked and spluttered for air. 

“All…” Asdethara stuttered, chest heaving. “All those people… just _gone._ ”

The Chantry sister knelt before Asdethara, gaze ambiguous. She wanted desperately to believe there was some sympathy hidden in the woman’s gaze, but she doubted it sorely. 

“Do you remember what happened?” the sister asked, probing. “How this began?”

Asdethara shook her head, gazing warily between the Chantry sister and Cassandra the not-Templar. She remembered…

Remembered…

“Running,” said Asdethara quietly, studying a point by Cassandra’s knee. “ _Things_ were chasing me…” Her brow furrowed. “And a woman?”

“A woman?” repeated the sister, taken aback. 

“She reached out to me…”

It was Cassandra’s turn to force the sister into a retreat, her back to Asdethara as she forcibly walked the sister toward the open door. 

“Go to the forward camp, Leliana,” said Cassandra. Both sister and not-Templar studied Asdethara with equally incomprehensible gazes. “I will take her to the Rift.”

Leliana retreated, gaze remaining on Asdethara for a hairsbreadth more. The door did not shut behind her; perhaps Cassandra would leave after she escorted Asdethara to this Rift of hers. 

Cassandra advanced, fondling something small, and Asdethara tensed, fearing the knife the woman inevitably held in her hand. 

But it was no knife; it was a key. Cassandra unlocked the enchanted irons from around Asdethara’s blistered wrists and entwined simple rope between them, lashing her hard and fast with no respite between freedom and capture. Asdethara watched the affair as if from outside her body, tense and fearful as the shem woman bound Asdethara to her. 

“What did happen?” she asked, once the woman had secured the knots. 

Cassandra gripped her arm tightly, supportingly, as she helped Asdethara to her feet. 

“It would be better to show you,” she answered. 

Asdethara was lead up cold stairs lit by torchlight, past soldiers who regarded her with wariness and suspicion. The upper floors of the—what did they call it? Chantry? Or was that the organization?—were aglow with candles of all sorts, lighting spectral the figures of a woman. Asdethara struggled to recall the woman’s name as pilgrims lit candles and women in robes of red and white sung sections of the Chantry’s sacred book.

Andraste. That was her name. 

Two soldiers opened the door for Cassandra; the light blinded Asdethara briefly. She held her bound hands up before her face, squinted a the diluted light from between her fingertips. Everything was so… _white._ There was snow everywhere, despite it being well into Cloudreach. It fell from the sky in flakes—when was the last time she had seen snow? Too long ago, that was for sure. 

Her eyes travelled, taking in the scandalized faces of soldiers and civilians alike, the snow-covered roofs of this pilgrim’s sanctuary, and the utter wilderness of their seclusion, before alighting on the sky. It was heavy, promising more snow, perhaps even a blizzard. Asdethara squinted, took in the unnatural greenish cast to the sky. It lit the clouds spectrally, a promise of the Fade from beyond the Veil. Shocked, frightened, her eyes found the green, found the rent in the space between here and there, watched clouds and the remains of that temple dedicated to Andraste’s ashes circle upward and upward, suspended by that otherworldly magic of the Fade.

“We call it the Breach,” said Cassandra, seeing Asdethara’s awful enrapture with the hole in the sky. “It’s a massive rift into the world of demons, which grows larger with each passing hour.” Cassandra’s gaze was affixed to the rent in the sky, a few paces in front of Asdethara. 

Asdethara shivered as the wind bit into her skin, cutting through her soft green jacket like knives. 

“It’s not the only such rift, just the largest,” continued Cassandra. “And all were caused by the explosion at the Conclave.”

Now, Asdethara was in no means ignorant to the way of magic. As First of Clan Lavellan, she was knowledgable of most practical magics, and a few arcane spells remaining from the glory days of Arlathan. But an explosion ripping a hole between the Veil? Incomprehensible. 

She said as much.

“This one did,” answered Cassandra, advancing once more towards Asdethara. She seemed utterly unconcerned with the possibility of her captive’s escape, no matter how incomprehensible the idea seemed. Perhaps she had been lulled into a false sense of security, comforted by the fact that if Asdethara did in fact escape, soldiers would hunt her. If she evaded the shem soldiers, there was the small matter of the isolation of the Frostback mountains. Asdethara forced herself to remain stoic, forced her traitorous thoughts beneath the surface of her mind as Cassandra continued.

“Unless we act, the Breach will grow until it swallows the world.”

Asdethara watched, entranced, as it crackle like firelight. Fade-green light erupted like a beacon, cascading from Breach to ground, scattering flaming meteors of the Veil to the four winds. 

In response, her hand crackled, the scarification on her palm glowing that same Fade green. As if called, it faced the direction of the Breach, burning so fiercely that she _screamed,_ knees crumpling in her agony as the twisting scar made its terrible way further and further down her pale, mole-smattered forearm. 

Too slow, it was gone, leaving Asdethara hunched and sobbing over her loosely curled hand. 

“Each time the Breach expands, so does your mark,” said Cassandra, face level with Asdethara’s own (when had she joined her in the snow?), “and it is killing you.”

And there was that familiar stab of fear. If Asdethara survived this, she was going back to the woods of the Free Marches, never to return. The world of men was not for her. 

“It may be the key to stopping this—” Creators, Cassandra was like a dog with a bone, “—but we haven’t much time.”

Asdethara couldn’t keep the ire out of her voice as she spat, “And you still think I did this? To myself?”

“Not intentionally,” came the answer, “but something clearly went wrong.”

“And if I’m not responsible?”

A pause.

“Someone clearly is, and you are our only suspect. If you wish to prove your innocence, this is the only way.”

The only way? Asdethara wanted to laugh, wanted to run, wanted to cry, wanted to wake up. She remembered being a child, daring her age mates to run closer and closer to the shemlen villages and receiving such dares in turn. Each time, they would grow scared and frightened. Each time, they would laugh. Asdethara always strayed nearest, testing the bounds, testing the patience of her Keeper. She was so _curious._

It was only fitting she be captured by one of them. 

Asdethara cleared her throat uncomfortably; it still stung from her impromptu strangling. 

“I understand,” she said, quiet. Be it a trick of the light, or whatever, Asdethara could have sworn Cassandra smiled her approval. “I’ll do whatever I can. Whatever it takes.”

She was helped to her feet with far more gentleness than before, and guided forward with a hand to the small of her back. Cassandra’s hand was warm, grounding, as Asdethara stumbled forward, feet clumsy in the snow and mud. She tried not to shrink beneath the accusatory gazes of soldiers, villagers, pilgrims; one spat at her feet as she passed, and it was only Cassandra’s hand that stopped her from charging after him, beating his teeth in. 

“They have decided your guilt,” said Cassandra, not blind to the ire of her people. “They need it.”

Asdethara caught the end of a conversation, “Should have finished them off at the Dales long ago.” and felt her ears turn red with anger, with shame. 

“Why?” she asked. “I’ve done nothing, and they’re blaming me—my _people_ —for this.”

Cassandra shrugged unhelpfully, but not without sympathy. 

“The people of Haven mourn our Most Holy: Divine Justinia,” Cassandra explained. “She was the head of the Chantry, seated on the Sunburst Throne in the Grand Cathedral of Val Royeaux. The Conclave was _hers._ ” 

“And that makes them right?” accused Asdethara.

Cassandra did not answer.

They walked a steep path cut into the mountains, away from the pilgrimage of Haven. Frozen mud cracked beneath their boots, and the jeers and whispers silenced as they walked further and further away, toward the Breach in the sky. 

“The Conclave was supposed to be a chance for peace between the mages and Templars; she brought their leaders together.” 

Cassandra let out a sigh, full of sadness and grief. 

“Now, they are dead. She is dead.”

They came to a gate; soldiers in little more than rough spun wool and hastily forged armor opened the heavy wood doors for them, greeting Cassandra with a reverent: “Seeker Pentaghast” as they passed. To Asdethara, they greeted with distain, but their accusations were blessedly silent. That, she felt, was the greatest gift of all. Her temper couldn’t handle another callous remark of vitriolic racism. It was frayed enough. 

“We lash out,” continued Cassandra, nudging Asdethara passed the guards, interrupting the staring match they had been engaged in, “like the sky. But we must think beyond ourselves now, as she did, until the Breach has been sealed.”

The gatehouse guarded a bridge, defended by a handful of men and women in uniform, as well as hastily erected walls made of oak staves sharpened to points. Some had been hardened by fire, others had not. Cassandra stopped Asdethara from walking any further with a hand to her armored elbow; she watched, frozen by curiosity, as Cassandra walked a pace in front of her, and withdrew a knife from her belt. 

Before, she feared she would be killed with it. Now, she didn’t know what to think.

Whatever thought did in fact cross her mind, it wasn’t Cassandra taking her by the wrists with one hand, and sawing the dirk through the thick ropes holding her captive. 

“There will be a trial,” was all she offered. “I can promise no more. Now come; it is not far.”

Asdethara wisely kept her silence as Cassandra beckoned her with a hand. Whatever spell or possession that had overcome the Seeker, she was unwilling to break it, for fear of her being murdered, or worse.

“Where are you taking me?” she finally asked, as Cassandra bid the watchman in the gatehouse opposite to open for them. 

“Your mark must be tested on something smaller than the Breach.”

Straying a half-step behind, Asdethara followed Cassandra past fleeing officers in ragged uniforms; some limped, others were carried on litters, all were covered in blood. There were barricades in the pilgrim’s walk—the same walk Asdethara had taken hours (or was it days?) before—made of the same half-hardened staves as the barricades on the bridge. Soldiers crouched behind them, grim faced. She could swear she could hear some of them praying. 

One of the soldiers fleeing down the mountain cried out, “Maker, it’s the end of the world!”

Asdethara couldn’t find it in herself to disagree with him.

It was almost easy to trick herself into thinking she was walking a mountain path somewhere north, her clan not a day’s ride away. If it weren't for the undercurrent of _wrong_ in the air, or the carts set aflame and abandoned in the road, or even the corpses strewn every dozen or so meters, Asdethara could have fooled herself. 

She wondered where her clan was, if they—

Her hand seized. Pain like no other traveled from fingertip to brain stem in a matter of seconds. Asdethara’s scream of agony was lost as the Breach exploded above them, showered more of the Veil into the world of the living below. She fell to her knees, then to her side, curled around her hand like a wounded animal. The agony was slower to pass this time; for a moment, she feared she would die. 

There were hands on her arms. It took a long while for Asdethara to realize it was Cassandra who was helping her to her feet. She steadied her, looked her in the eye, tried to reassure Asdethara with her hands that she would be all right. It was a far cry from the woman who had tried her damnedest to kill her not minutes ago. 

“The pulses are coming faster now,” she said. Cassandra pressed Asdethara onward, ignored how her hand glowed and crackled with the same light as above. “The larger the Breach grows, the more rifts appear, and the more demons we face.”

“How did I survive the blast?” Asdethara asked, once she rallied the strength to do so.

Cassandra was silent for a moment. “They say you…” She paused, struggled for the right words to continue. “ _Stepped_ out of a rift, then fell unconscious. According to one report, there was a woman in the rift behind you. Her identity is unknown, as of now.”

“As of now?” 

“We hope to identify her, though I fear it will be for naught. Everything further in the valley was lain waste by the blast, including the Temple of Sacred Ashes. If she too survived—”

Cassandra’s words were cut off. The pair had come to another gatehouse left abandoned in the midst of their conversation. The bridge they walked on was old, made of cobblestones and mortar from ages past. They were almost across when a meteor of the Fade made its final landing not feet in front of Asdethara. It did not burn like regular fire; the mana of it made her skin tingle, made her head ache. It rent the bridge in two, sent Asdethara and Cassandra tumbling down to the frozen river not ten feet below. 

Her jacket and the armor sewn into it took the brunt of her fall, but her head cracked against the broken cobbles and ice. Dazedly, Asdethara felt the growing welt with the tips of her ungloved hand, saw them come away red with blood. Her hand glowed, crackled with pain that was just barely bearable. Another meteor struck the ice, cracked it. And from its ruin emerged a ghastly figure shrouded in rags. Its clawed hands reached skyward, its mouth opened in a gurgling scream of pleasure. Frozen by the sight of the shade, Asdethara lay supine on the ice as Cassandra drew her blade and shield, shouted at her to stay down. 

She was very happy to do so. At least, until the same Fade magic began to crack the skin of the river in front of her. Alarmed, she skittered backward on her hands and feet, looked at Cassandra, who was blind to her charge’s plight. 

As the shade rose from the small gap between the Fade and the mortal world, Asdethara felt her hand roll over the polished grip of what she could almost fool herself into thinking was a staff. She was never so lucky. Looking to her side, she saw it, buried in the remains of supplies meant for transport to the fighting in the mountains. Perhaps it had been salvaged off a dead apostate? 

Asdethara rubbed her hand over her _vallaslin,_ blessed Mythal with more fervor and profanity than was strictly necessary, and clambered unsteadily to her feet.

Clutching it in hand, she felt the smooth thrum of her mana meeting the latent enchantments of the staff. When it did not sting her palm, or strike her dead, Asdethara sent an even quieter, more fervently profane prayer to Mythal, and held the staff on the defensive: behind her, angled so she could direct the natural frost magic imbued by the enchanter better. Her Keeper had drilled the pose into her, made Asdethara remember it, even in sleep. 

How many times had Keeper Deshanna thrown something at her while she slept, just to observe the way she held her staff upon awakening? Too many, a more naïve Asdethara would have answered. The true answer was just enough, and then some.

The shade advanced toward her, and she struck out, the motions as natural as breathing. For a moment, before the attack, the shade seemed to hesitate, caught between ignoring Asdethara in favor of attacking Cassandra—the more credible threat—and ending Asdethara to avoid doing so later. It was by that fortune alone that she received the first blow. 

The creature was not weak to frost magic, it seemed; despite the chill that enveloped it from Asdethara’s assaults, it did not pause as it lashed out with cruel claws, rent the fabric of her coat and her flesh beneath. Asdethara cried out in pain, in rage, and struck out with the blade of her stave. It pierced the creature through what would have been it’s face. The resulting chill of a basic winter spell made the shade frost over, and shatter into a formless cloud of intent. It faded back into the Fade after lingering for a moment more. 

Cassandra had just finished dispatching her own shade when Asdethara approached, staff held loosely in hand. 

“It’s over,” she said, breathing heavily with the thrill of battle. “We can—”

Asdethara stopped talking, stared down Cassandra’s blade. It’s tip rested against her throat, the slightest pressure a warning. 

“Drop your weapon,” Cassandra spat. “ _Now._ ”

Her voice left no room for argument. Asdethara knew the uneasy camaraderie could not last between them. She was a mage, Dalish at that, and Cassandra was a Seeker—as close as one could be to a Templar, if not more. They were natural enemies, without bringing in Asdethara’s possible massacre at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. 

“Do you really think I need a staff to be dangerous?” Asdethara said, incredulous. True, magic was less predictable without the help of a foci, but it was possible. 

“Is that supposed to reassure me?” spat Cassandra.

“I haven’t used magic on you yet, have I?” 

Cassandra stared, unflinching.

“But if it will make you feel better, I’ll disarm.”

Asdethara almost missed Cassandra’s defeated sigh. The blade left her throat, and she straightened, sighed her own sigh. 

“You’re right,” said Cassandra, albeit begrudgingly. Her sword was sheathed in short order, and she stared down at Asdethara. “You don’t need a staff, but you should have one. I cannot protect you.” 

Conversation over. Asdethara knew she displeased Cassandra, but she couldn’t find it in her to care; the woman _did_ try to kill her twice now. 

They ascended a steep incline lined with nothing but elfroot and weeds in silence. 

“I should remember you agreed to come willingly.”

Asdethara looked at Cassandra, askance, but she offered no further comment. The statement was said so quietly, that Asdethara was forced to draw the most logical conclusion: the Seeker was merely musing aloud, and her charge had the misfortune of overhearing her.

Without any further conversation between them, Asdethara and Cassandra continued onward. They followed the path until it died, lead into to the frozen river. Judging by the stability of it, and reluctance to break beneath the barrage of the Fade, the river had not been unfrozen in quite a long while. Ages, she would venture a guess. 

“Where are all your soldiers?” she asked, once they passed another stretch of land without another soul in sight. 

“At the forward camp,” came Cassandra’s droll reply. “We are on our own.”

Their way forward was mostly unimpeded; where the river ended, and the path resumed with a set of roughly hewn stairs in the face of the rock. A torch had gone out in the turmoil; unthinkingly, the twisted her hand, lit the brazier aglow once more. She had always been exceptionally good at lighting candles, small campfires. One time, she entertained the children of a shem village with some harmless sparks while the Lavellan clan was trading. The memory of their squeals of delight as they chased them like fireflies overcame her briefly, and Asdethara smiled. Fire came to her, as natural as ice. The dichotomy of it was not lost on her. 

Asdethara used her flames on the wraiths that impeded their path forward, flexing muscles long gone soft with disuse. 

“Quickly,” said Cassandra, taking no time to sheathe her sword or right her shield; she took the stairs two at a time, loping forward at a pace that had Asdethara practically running to keep up. “You can hear the fighting ahead.”

“Who’s fighting?” Asdethara panted, using her staff as a glorified walking stick. 

Cassandra did not answer. 

They came to a outlying temple left decimated by the explosion at the Conclave. Defended by the men of Haven, overrun by demons birthed by a jagged seam in the Fade, they looked like they needed reinforcements. 

They leapt over a rise of rock, dropped into the ruined temple. Asdethara did not move so much as glide; her magic wrecked the demons worming their way into the world of men. She twirled her staff above her head, drove it blade-first between the cobbles. Lightning crackled, burned through a line of wraiths, made them break down to their basest filaments of Fade-magic. It was over for now.

A hand grabbed hers. Jumping in shock, Asdethara stared at the apostate mage; he was one of the People, all aquiline features and serious disposition. He ran the tips of his fingers over the scarification of her palm thoughtfully, as if it were the key to their salvation. Someone shouted: “Quick, before more come through!” but the elf acted as if he hadn’t heard the cry for help. 

“What are you—”

But Asdethara did not have the opportunity to finish her sentence. The elf man’s hand travelled to her wrist, gripped it tight, and thrust her hand up, into the rift. 

Asdethara gasped. It didn’t exactly _hurt_ , but it was certainly unpleasant. Fade light crackled along her palm, made the fine hair on her arms stand on end. As she watched, the rift distended, went concave. Fade light knitted the rift closed, like a needle to a wound. 

With a snap, the rift condensed in on itself, shattered into nothingness and leaving behind the pulp of demons. More than a little frightened, Asdethara looked at the elf, clutched her hand close to her chest. 

“What did you do?” she snapped. 

“I did nothing,” the elf said. “The credit is yours.”

Asdethara stared thoughtfully at her hand. The green cast of the Fade had gone for now. In it’s wake was the scarification that remained: a slice across the palm like a life line, tendrils like lightning trailing down her hand, wrapping halfway up her forearm. 

“Well,” she half-laughed. “At least this is good for something.”

The elf smiled, if the twitch of his lips could be considered a smile. 

“Yes,” he agreed. “Whatever magic placed that mark upon your hand also placed that mark upon your hand.” He held her hand gingerly once more, ran his fingernail over the slice in her palm as it glowed Fade green again. “I theorized the mark might be able to close the rifts that have opened in the Breach’s wake—” With another aborted half-smile, he closed her fingers over her palm, smothering the light. “—and it seems I was correct.”

Asdethara mirrored his smile, feeling an odd sense of relief at seeing another one of her people. He might not have worn _vallaslin_ , nor did he have the bearing of a city elf, but his sight was comforting nonetheless. 

“What you’re saying is this mark may be able to close the Breach,” cut in Cassandra. She hovered over Asdethara’s shoulder, glared at the elf like he was the cause of her problems. Asdethara felt herself bristle in protest.

“Possibly,” was all he said, as enigmatic as June. To Asdethara, he said: “It seems you are the key to our salvation.”

From behind her, Asdethara heard someone chuckle. Turning, her eyes found a dwarf; he was busy pulling the leather gloves on his hand taut. He had the bearing of a man used to hardship: broken nose, scarred visage, wry smile. His straw colored hair was half pulled away from his face, and his tunic was rucked open to expose his barrel chest. 

“Good to know!” he laughed. “And to think I thought we’d be ass deep in demons forever.” 

Once the dwarf had determined his gloves were suitably tight, he swaggered— _swaggered—_ toward the group, approaching Asdethara with a roughish smile. He took her Fade-touched hand, bent over it, and kissed the back of her hand as if she were a princess. 

“Varric Tethras,” the dwarf said, unbending and releasing her hand (Asdethara was most definitely _not_ blushing). “Rouge, storyteller, and occasionally unwelcome tagalong.”

The latter was addressed to Cassandra, accompanied by a secretive wink. 

Cassandra, in response, let out a disgusted noise.

“Are you with the Chantry?” asked Asdethara. “Or…”

Beside her, the elf laughed. “Was that a serious question?”

Varric answered with his own chuckle. “Technically, I’m a prisoner. Just like you.”

Cassandra bristled in protest. 

“I brought you here to tell your story to the Divine,” she snapped. “Clearly, that is no longer an issue.”

Varric offered naught but a shrug in reply. 

“And yet, here I am,” he said. “Lucky for you, considering current events.”

Asdethara smiled, suddenly nervous. 

“That’s a nice crossbow you have there,” she said, not quite sure what else to say to the dwarf. 

That seemed to be the right thing to say to him; Varric let out an appreciative sigh and craned his neck to look at the crossbow’s stock, almost lovingly. 

“Isn’t she?” Varric agreed. “Bianca and I have been through a lot together.”

Asdethara smiled. “You named your crossbow ‘Bianca’?” she asked, unable to keep the laugh from her voice.

“Of course,” the dwarf smiled. “And she’ll be _great_ company in the valley.”

“Absolutely not,” spat Cassandra. “Varric, your help is much appreciated, but—”

The dwarf pulled himself up to his full height; Asdethara didn’t know how short she was, until she noticed that the crown of Varric’s head came level with her ears. 

“Have you been in the valley lately, Seeker?” said Varric, incredulous. “Your soldiers aren’t in control anymore. You need me.”

Unable to argue with the dwarf’s logic, Cassandra let out another disgusted noise (Asdethara was beginning to believe it was naught but a default reaction to the man’s presence), and turned her back, headed to a low wall that led alongside the mountain. The path ahead, Asdethara noticed, was blocked. They would have to go around it. 

Beside her, the elf said: “My name is Solas, if introductions are to be made. I’m pleased to see you still live.”

“He means: “I kept that mark from killing you while you slept.”,” deadpanned Varric.

“You seem to know a great deal about it,” said Asdethara, intrigued. 

Solas smiled that enigmatic smile of his once more.

“Like you,” said Cassandra, “Solas is an apostate.”  

“Technically,” said Solas, “all mages are now apostates, Cassandra.”

Apostate. Asdethara heard of that term in the shem villages her clan visited. Oftentimes, it was slung at her and her Keeper in accusation to village sickness or pestilence. Some thought her to be a mage belonging to a shem Circle, and acted accordingly. Sometimes, they accepted her and her Keeper as the hedge mages they truly were. Solas did not seem like he had been raised in confinement, but his bearing was not quite that of a self-taught hedge mage either. 

So deep was she in thought, Asdethara almost didn’t realize that Solas had continued speaking.

“My travels have allowed me to learn much about the Fade,” the elf said. “Far beyond the experience of a common Circle mage.”

So that answered her question.

“I came to offer whatever help I could give to the Breach,” Solas continued. He gazed upward at the rent in the sky, tracked meteors of Fade magic with his eyes. “If it is not sealed, we are all doomed, regardless of origin.”

“That’s a commendable attitude,” said Asdethara. She meant it; never in her life had she seen one of the People give their talents to shemlen so readily. 

Solas smiled again. “It is merely the most sensible one. Although sense seems to be in short supply nowadays.”

They shared a laugh. The apostate asked for her name in a polite, neutral voice. Asdethara shared it willingly, mind only barely at ease.

“A pleasure to meet you. If only the circumstances were less dire.”

Solas turned to Cassandra, who regarded the path ahead with single-minded determination.

“Cassandra,” he said, bare feet barely disturbing the snow beneath them. Asdethara shivered in pity. “The magic involved here is unlike any I have ever seen. While your prisoner is a mage, I do not see any mage having this power at their disposal.”

Cassandra was quiet for a while as they trekked up a sharp incline, hugging the cliff face tightly. 

“Understood,” she finally said. It did not seem like an absolution of guilt, but it was pretty damned close. Asdethara would take what she could get. “The forward camp is not far now. We must make all due haste.”

She broke into a slight run, and Solas joined her, leaving Asdethara with Varric. 

For a moment, they stood in silence, watched the pair disappear around a bend in the cliff. 

“Well, Bianca’s excited,” Varric said with a coy grin. 

Asdethara couldn’t help it. She laughed.

 

* * *

 

 

Their path to the forward camp was relatively unimpeded. There were a pair of shades and a wraith who lingered on a frozen pond, where the path resumed with an untouched, brazier-lit staircase. She, Varric, and Solas shared banter while Cassandra maintained her stony silence.

They came to another gatehouse besieged by a Fade rift. This was taken care of in short order. Once the rift was left open and weak, Asdethara held her hand aloft and felt that same pull in the Fade. She gathered the ragged strings of it and stitched them together, wove it back together like a blanket. A clench of the fist, and it was done.

“The rift is sealed!” called Cassandra to the sentries above, voice tight in exhaustion. “Open the gate!”

“Yes, Lady Cassandra!” came the answering cry.  Asdethara breathed a sigh of relief as the enormous oak doors were pushed open from the opposite side by two harried sentries miraculously bereft of injuries.

“Whatever that thing is on your hand,” said Varric as he passed, “it’s useful.”

Asdethara took a moment to study it as they passed through the gate. Now that there was no activity, the scar on her hand had faded back to dormancy. 

Ahead, she could hear snippets of heated conversation. 

“You have already caused enough trouble with this exercise in futility!” spat a man.

“ _I_ have caused trouble?” came Leliana’s incredulous voice. 

“Yes!” The man’s shrill reply cut through Asdethara like a knife. “You, Cassandra, Most Holy. Haven’t you done enough?”

The bridge was occupied by a regiment of tired soldiers and slapdash defenses. Toward the middle was a command tent, bedecked with the Chantry’s sigil: a flaming sun. Before it’s opening was a man in Chantry colors, and beside him was Sister Leliana. 

“Enough!” spat the sister. “You are _not_ in command here!”

“ _I will not have this!_ ”

So engrossed in his argument, the Chantry man did not realize that Asdethara and her motley crew had come upon them. He stiffened, suddenly possessed of holy rage. She wasn’t blind; she knew it was meant all for her. 

“Here they are now,” he snarled.

Leliana came around the impromptu war table, something akin to relief on her face.

“You made it,” she said. “Chancellor Roderick, this is—”

The Chantry man cut the sister off. 

“I know who she is.” Chancellor Roderick stared down his nose at Asdethara, as if she were nothing better than an ant. _Or an elf,_ she thought traitorously as his attention turned to Cassandra. “As grand chancellor of the Chantry, I hereby order you to take this criminal to Val Royeaux to face execution!”

Asdethara swore she felt her heart stop. “Execution?” she spluttered. 

Cassandra exploded beside Asdethara, a deity of rage that almost convinced her that the shem woman was Mythal returned (which was impossible; as if the goddess of justice would return in the form of one of the shemlen). 

“Order _me?_ ” she echoed. “You are a glorified clerk. A bureaucrat!”

“And you are a thug,” snapped Chancellor Roderick. “But you are a thug who supposedly serves the Chantry.”

Before Cassandra could say something truly unfortunate, Leliana cut in.

“We serve the Most Holy, Chancellor,” she said, ever the diplomat. “As you are well aware.”

Chancellor Roderick threw his hands up in exasperation.

“Justinia is _dead!_ ” he shouted, voice erring on the edge of shrill once again. “We must elect a new Divine with all haste, and obey _her_ orders.”

Asdethara stiffened, feeling the dismissal in the air. 

“Stop talking about me like I’m not even here,” she threatened.

“You shouldn’t even be here!” Chancellor Roderick retorted.

“And yet: here I am.”

Letting loose a beleaguered sigh, Chancellor Roderick turned to Cassandra, who had approached the war table with the same single minded determination Asdethara saw when the woman was confronted by an enemy. 

“Seeker, call a retreat,” entreated the Chantry man. “Our position here is hopeless.”

“We can stop this before it’s too late,” Cassandra said.

The man laughed, half amused, half defeated. “How, Seeker? You won’t survive long enough to reach the Temple, not with all your soldiers.”

“And yet: we must do it.” She traced a path with her fingertip. “The route ahead is the fastest, and if there is anything we require, it is speed.”

“But it not the safest,” said Leliana. She traced another path with her fingertips, one that cut through the curving path the Seeker had shown them. “Our forces can charge as a distraction, while we go through the mountains.”

Asdethara followed Leliana’s finger, then looked toward the mountains. They pierced the sky, raking it like the Breach did. 

“We lost contact with an entire squad on that mountain,” Cassandra protested. “It is too risky.”

Chancellor Roderick clasped his hands together, as if penitent. Asdethara doubted he had ever been penitent in his life. 

“Please, Seeker,” he intreated. “Abandon this foolish course of action, before more lives have been lost!”

Above them, the Breach exploded, shattering the sky further. Fade meteors cascaded down upon the valley. Asdethara’s hand cramped, flared with Fade light. The pain was blinding, but she refused to show weakness before this man who wished her dead. She held her aching, throbbing hand by the wrist, waited for it to abate. When it did, Cassandra was there.

“How do you think we should proceed?”

Asdethara looked at her, askance. “Now you’re asking me my opinion?” she snapped. 

“You have the mark,” offered Solas. 

“And you are the one we must keep alive,” said Cassandra. “Since we cannot agree on our own…”

She trailed off, and Asdethara was left to study the map on the table. Too many things could go wrong with either plan of approach, but there was one thing she was absolutely certain about: she would never make it to Orlais's capitol. 

“I say we charge,” she said. Her eyes found the ruins of the temple, swathed in smoke and Fade. “Either way, I won’t survive for your _trial._ ” This was spat at the chancellor, who scoffed, pretending at offense. “Whatever happens, it happens now.”

Her companions grunted their assent. Cassandra, pleased with the agreement, turned to the Chantry sister.

“Leliana, bring everyone left in the valley,” she ordered. “Everyone.”

Leliana nodded, retreated in the opposite direction to where the troops had gathered in wait. As she barked orders to them, The group of four continued up the ruined path to the temple. 

So quiet, she could barely hear it, the chancellor left them with some parting words. 

“On your head be it.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations: 
> 
> Athdhea’ere’lan - lit. Mage of Dawn and Dusk  
> Elvarman’elan - Ice Queen (lit. 'ice made flesh')  
> Arlise’sul’vhen - Hearth-keeper of the People. A nonsense position based upon the tradition of Keepers who share their knowledge collectively at Arlathvhen: a two day conclave of all Dalish clans that occurs once every ten years.


	3. "To shape heaven itself"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Let the blade pass through the flesh,  
> Let my blood touch the ground,  
> Let my cries touch their hearts.   
> Let mine be the last sacrifice."
> 
> \--Andraste 7:12

From the bridge, the path all but disappeared. They were forced to follow Cassandra’s lead up the mountain face, through snow deep enough to nearly swallow Varric whole. More than once, they had to help either the dwarf or Asdethara out of a drift. Cold, wet, they made achingly slow progress up the mountain. Asdethara made small talk with Varric, leaving Solas to his own thoughts, and Cassandra to her self-imposed silence. Solas was interested in the practicalities of magic, and trying to engage him on their shared heritage brought only scorn. Cassandra only grunted, or gave one word answers; Asdethara grew tired of that game very quickly. But Varric was more than happy to talk her ear off to fill the silence. They shared stories like old friends: by the time they reached another outlying temple, he was calling her “Dea, because “Asdethara” is too damn long”. 

At first, Asdethara didn’t like it. She was still so used to _melin’ha_ being gifted in solemnity, that Varric’s transition from “Asdethara” to “Dea” had briefly taken her aback.

"If you want, I can still call you Asdethara," Varric offered, seeing her discomfort. "Or I can come up with something as catchy as Seeker."

"No, it's okay," came Asdethara's ready answer. And deep down, it was okay. It made her feel welcome.

Soldiers in the same patchwork armor were strewn about the temple proper. Some looked wearily up at the hodgepodge party as they passed. Others were awaiting medical attention with varying degrees of awareness, and thus were too occupied to see the strange accompaniment of elves, human, and dwarf.

What drew Asdethara’s attention was the rows of bodies, wrapped in clean linen to preserve their dignities in death. A pair of Chantry sisters were making their rounds; over the far away din of clashing swords and the rumble of the Breach above, she could hear them praying for the departed. 

“Be wary.” Solas’s voice snapped her out of her observation. Asdethara tore her gaze away, her hand throbbed in answer. 

The way up was blocked by a ragged Fade tear, birthing transparent Wraiths and lurking Shades. Leading the charge was an impossibly tall man wearing full plate armor, shoulders padded with the mane of a lion. His gold hair reflected the light of the Fade, dyeing it a sick shade of green. 

“How many of these things  _are_ there?” Varric bemoaned, Bianca already well in hand.

“Too many,” Asdethara quipped. 

The terrain was littered with bones and the uncollected dead. As they dealt with one demon, two more seemed to take its place. Aptly named Terrors crawled from beneath the earth, diving in and out of sight as if they still occupied the Fade. Asdethara was dizzy from the amount of times her head had struck cobblestones, after the skeletal tail of a Terror had struck her from right under her feet. Behind her, she heard Cassandra curse in frustration, felt demon blood splash the back of her tattered, filthy coat. 

Once everything was said and done, she would need to burn her clothes. 

The final Terror was felled by the man in the lion pelt. Asdethara felt the change in the Fade tear, the subtle weakening like it was her own pulse. Almost second nature now, she knitted the tear together, let it disappear back to whence it came. Exhausted, she leant on her stave and ran a hand through her sweaty hair. 

Solas crept up on her, as quiet as any of the hunters in her clan. She was too exhausted to face him. 

“Sealed, as before,” he said. “You are becoming quite proficient at this.”

On her other side, Varric snorted. Beneath it, Asdethara could almost trick herself into hearing an undercurrent of worry. 

“Let’s just hope it works on the big one,” he said.

Feeling positive she wouldn’t faint, Asdethara straightened in time to see the blond man jog over to Cassandra. His armor was soaked with demon blood; a smear was on his cheek, staining his skin. She had to hold her staff tighter, to stop herself from doubling over in pain. She smelled the spicy-sweet scent of lyrium under his skin, sickeningly intoxicating. 

_Templar._

The child in her remembered Markham. She resisted the urge to cry in fear, but only just. 

“Lady Cassandra!” the Templar greeted.  He was Fereldan, seemed genial enough, but Asdethara knew how Templars could be. Knew the taint that ran deep. “You managed to close the rift? Well done.”

Cassandra scoffed. “Do not congratulate me, Commander.” She looked scathingly at Asdethara. “It was the prisoner’s doing.”

Asdethara cringed, hated the attention levied upon her. 

“Is it?” the man’s response was mild. “I hope they’re right about you. We’ve lost a lot of people getting you here.”

Yes, because she needed the constant reminder. The rows of dead were in her mind’s eye. Unwittingly, she looked to her feet, saw the bloodied gaze of a dead soldier looking up at her, accusing in death. 

“You’re not the only one hoping that,” she said, almost too quiet to hear.

The Commander studied her. Asdethara tried not to cringe. 

“We’ll see soon enough, shall we.” His attention moved from her, and Asdethara tried not to cry with relief. To Cassandra, he said: “The way to the Temple should be clear. Leliana will meet you there.”

Cassandra nodded tersely. “Then, Commander, we will not delay.” Her eyes found Asdethara, eyebrow raised in silent question. Instead of answering, Asdethara slid her stolen staff into the bandolier slung across her back. Made of halla leather and everite, it was a kingly gift amongst the Dalish. 

_“Dareth shiral, da’len,” her Keeper had whispered into the crown of her hair in goodbye. “I pray you bring us good news from this Conclave.”_

The gift was meant to cement that thought, make it sacred enough to be real. But like the shemlen Maker, her Creators had not heard their prayers. 

“Give us time, Commander,” Asdethara said, squaring her shoulders against the urge to run from the blond commander and his lyrium-stained presence. "Leave the rift to me."

The man looked at her askance, as if dueling with the urge to subjugate or acquiesce. 

“Maker watch over you, for all our sakes.”

He retreated, pausing to help a limping soldier in patchwork armor to safety. With him went the terrible scent of lyrium, and Asdethara felt herself breathe for the first time since her mana had reached out in joyful terror to him. 

“You okay, kid?”

Asdethara looked at Varric. There were a multitude of ways she could answer him: she could be truthful, lay her frustrations bare. She could lie, say _"I'm fine",_ and seal the deal with a sly smile. Truthfully, she was more likely to burst into angry tears than anything, which would do no one any good, and serve to further embarrass herself. 

Instead of answering, she shouldered her staff more comfortably across her back and strode forward, passing Cassandra and Solas, who stared at her back in equal parts confusion and intrigue. The way ahead dropped off to a path stained black by fire. Without pausing, Asdethara jumped down, let her knees take the impact, and let Varric’s question go unanswered. 

Sensing their companion’s discomfort, the party remained quiet the rest of the way to the ruins of the temple. There was no snow on the ground; the explosion had turned it to a thick mist that lay close to the ground, turning everything below her knees opaque. More than once one of them tripped on a misplaced rock, or an invisible corpse. Varric went down hard into the mist, and came flying up with a pale expression and a shouted, "Andraste's flaming knickers!" that was loud enough to echo all throughout the valley. For the rest of the trek forward, he was uncomfortably quiet, murmuring about the nightmares he would have.

Asdethara wondered macabrely what had been so terrible to invoke such an impossible statement.

They made a turn, climbed a low set of stairs, and came upon what Asdethara assumed was the mall leading to the temple proper. What had been formerly glorious was now black with ruin; she gagged at the scent of burning flesh and charred hair. The blast had done incomprehensible damage to the temple, tossing entire sections like child’s play, and ripping the mountain in half. Soot lay thick underfoot, soft enough to muffle sound; the closer they got, the thicker it became, and the more unbearable the smell became. 

When they came to the corpses—skinless, melted to their bones, eyes aflame and jaws hanging open in terror—Asdethara had to call upon Mythal for strength, for the sight was more than enough to give her nightmares for the rest of her days. 

Maybe she and Varric could compare notes. 

“The Temple of Sacred Ashes,” mused Solas, as if the sight before him did not faze him in the least. 

“What’s left of it,” said Varric, disgust thick in his voice.

Cassandra looked at Asdethara, as if expecting some new admission of guilt. When none came, she said instead: “This is where you walked out of the Fade and our soldiers found you.” Her gaze narrowed. “They say a woman was with you.”

“And I told you,” said Asdethara tersely, long tired of this particular line of questioning. “I don’t remember.”

There was the hollowed-out remains of a corridor before them. Asdethara led the party forward, stepping gingerly over a miraculously intact corpse of a Templar. His skin and armor had become fused by the heat; she whispered a quiet prayer to Falon’Din, and pretended that the whisper of air she heard did not come from the ruin of a man. The stones radiated heat, hot enough to make even Solas sweat, though he walked unfazed through the furnace. When they came to the open-air remains of the temple, the heat gave way to an unnatural cold. The taint of the Fade on the air made the temperature drop several degrees; it made her shiver, though she could not wholly attribute the reaction to the change in temperature. 

Up close, the Breach was truly a marvel. Gravity was no longer subject to Thedas’s physicality; huge tracts of broken temple lay suspended from the ground, pirouetting around the artificial gravity of the Breach like a sick orrery. And hanging in the skin of the world was an improperly sealed rift. It bubbled the air around it, like a scab. Asdethara could tell intrinsically that the seal would not hold for much longer.

“The Breach is a long way up,” remarked Varric, neck craned backward to gaze up at the tear the sky made. 

Asdethara didn’t answer. Her attention had been drawn elsewhere. She looked behind, at the path they had taken, saw Leliana striding towards them, bow in hand, retainer of soldiers following behind. 

“You made it!” she exclaimed. “Thank the Maker.”

Cassandra did not answer her greeting with friendliness. 

“Leliana, get your soldiers into position around the Breach.” With Leliana’s curt nod in reply, the Seeker turned back to Asdethara, whose attention had been sucked back to the scab. “This is your chance. Are you ready?”

Asdethara didn’t answer for a while. She mirrored Varric’s pose, neck craned back almost painfully to observe the Breach and it’s orrery. 

“I’m not even sure how to even start getting up to that thing,” she deadpanned.

“No,” said Solas, pointing to the scab that had so captivated Asdethara. “That rift is the first, and it is the key. Seal it, and with it perhaps we seal the Breach.”

It was as good a plan as any. 

“Then let’s find a way down,” said Cassandra. “And be careful.”

Cassandra lead this time, leading them around the remains of the second floor where they had entered. The floor was treacherous; stone had been superheated by the explosion, and had coalesced together unevenly upon cooling. The Fade rippled around them, raw and hurting and thick with the past. 

“ _Now is the hour of our victory._ ”

It was whisper soft, the voice, yet so loud in the scarred Fade. The party stopped as if stung; Cassandra reflexively drew her blade. 

“ _Bring forth the sacrifice._ ”

“What are we hearing?” Cassandra snapped, looking for the source of the booming voice, yet finding none. 

Solas mulled the question over for all of a few seconds. 

“My best guess: the one who created the Breach.”

His answer seemed to satisfy and unnerve Cassandra all at once. Mildly shaken, they continued onward. Asdethara looked upward, saw two of Leliana’s archers perched on an outcropping of rock that had once been a floor. Her heart beat unevenly. On the air she smelled that same sickly-sweet, unnaturally intoxicating lyrium scent, but it was wrong. It made her stomach churn with revulsion and hunger all at once. The mana in her lusted for it; she lusted for it down to the very marrow of her bones.

Her eyes found the jagged red pillar spearing the ground the same time as Varric. It grew from the ground, the torn walls, like moss, and succeeded in only making her skin crawl. It glowed with radiance, made her want to reach out,  _touch_ —

“You know this stuff is red lyrium, Seeker,” said Varric warily. At his voice, Asdethara snapped herself out her fugue. Her hand had half risen against her will, went to touch what should not be touched.

“I see it, Varric.” Cassandra’s voice was no-nonsense and terse. If the unnatural lyrium was bothering her, she did not show it.

“But what’s it _doing_ here?”

“Magic could have drawn on the lyrium beneath the temple, corrupted it—” offered Solas in explanation. He, too, seemed utterly unaffected.  

“It’s evil.” Varric cut Solas off with a stunning amount of curtness from the formerly jovial dwarf. Asdethara looked at him, worried. “Whatever you do, don’t touch it.”

She clasped her hands together. She would not touch. But oh, how she wanted to. 

"Here," Cassandra said, coming to a break in the balcony. "We can get down here."

“ _Keep the sacrifice still._ ”

The voice came again, made Asdethara’s stomach churn as Varric dropped out of sight, over the broken balcony and down to the uneven floor below. The Seeker watched her warily, as if she feared Asdethara was about to turn on them. 

Her eyes did not leave Asdethara, even as Solas passed between them and gracefully leapt down to join Varric below.

"Your turn," she said, curt.

Asdethara did not have it in her to argue.

“ _Someone, help me!_ ”

This voice was different, female. It’s sudden appearance, it’s desperation reaching out through the Fade, made Asdethara misjudge her jump. With a surprised cry, she landed awkwardly on the ground, ankle rolling, but not breaking. A small blessing. 

Above her, Cassandra gasped as if struck. 

“That was Divine Justinia’s voice!” she exclaimed. 

Asdethara didn’t have a reply for her. She cleared the way for Cassandra to join them with the slightest limp, and approached the scabbed over Fade rift with Varric and Solas in tow. Her hand throbbed, crackled painfully. She peeled back her sleeve, watched as the corruption crept ever slowly up her arm. 

The terror was real. It cleared her head.

“ _What’s going on here?_ ”

Asdethara’s attention snapped skyward, head whipping around to locate the source. That voice was her voice, full of anger usually reserved for angry shemlen and power-thirsty Templars who did not understand "No". She looked at Cassandra, who looked at Asdethara with awe. 

“You _were_ here. Most Holy called out to you,” she whispered. “But—”

The Fade writhed, brought forth imprints of the last events to occur in the space. Riveted, relegated to nothing but passivity, they watched the pale shade of the murdered Divine held aloft like a martyr by angry, red magic. Looming before her was a curious figure, a shade made of darkness, shade like fingers clutching a round object in hand. And her—entering the fray, stumbling upon the scene by happenstance. 

“ _What’s going on here?_ ” Asdethara’s shade repeated, equally as angry, equally as frightened. 

“ _Run while you can!_ ” proclaimed the Divine’s shade. “ _Warn them!_ ”

And that voice, terrible and old all at once, rattling her very bones. “ _Slay the elf._ ”

And as quickly as the Fade created the image, it disappeared like morning mist. Feeling torn, Asdethara stared at where the poor echo of her had been, and remembered nothing. It was as if another woman had entered the Temple of Sacred Ashes, and she had emerged, clean of all sins that had occurred within. The disconnect was so strong between the past and present, Asdethara feared she had become possessed in all the tumult. 

And behind her was Cassandra, volleying question after question as if she was being interrogated once more. 

“I don’t remember!” she roared, her fear making her angry. She wheeled on the Seeker, mind blank with anger. “I don’t even know what we’re seeing, Cassandra!”

“Echoes of what happened here,” came Solas’s droll explanation. Asdethara whirled on him, incensed. How could he sound so calm, detached, as if this were nothing more than a friendly discussion? “The Fade bleeds in this place.” His gaze found the scab, and Asdethara’s followed. “The rift is not sealed, but it has been closed, albeit temporarily.” 

Asdethara ran her thumb along the scar on her hand, felt the power crackle painfully underneath.

“With the mark, I believe that the rift can be opened and then sealed, properly and safely.”

“And opening the rift will undoubtedly attract attention,” said Asdethara. 

At that, Cassandra drew both sword and shield, snarling at the scab. “That means demons,” she spat. To Leliana, she called out powerfully, “Stand ready!”

Asdethara had no clue how to open a sealed Fade rift, but she didn’t need to know how to do it. She simply needed to act. 

The scab burst open, and with it came the attention she had so correctly predicted. 

Shades crawled out of the tear, clawing with knife-like fingers. Wraiths floated like innocent wisps, lobbing volleys of Fade energy that brought massive fatigue upon striking. Worst of all was the pride demon: more than twelve feet tall and alien in appearance. It’s craggy skin rippled with lightning, and it laughed upon standing. 

“ _Now!_ ” howled Cassandra. 

Arrows seemed to only make it angry. Bianca's powerful crossbow bolts only made it pause. Asdethara and Solas's natural ice magic only slowed it to a barely controllable stampede. 

The beast was truly unstoppable.

“We must strip it’s defenses!” came Cassandra’s cry. Asdethara couldn’t see her; she was trapped behind the massive demon, futilely chipping away at the armor at it’s legs. Electricity made the ground tremble; she threw herself to the side, avoiding a veritable storm of lightning thrown her way. A shade scraped it’s knife-fingers down her back, stinging in agony. Her staff blade dispatched it quickly. 

She was bleeding, stained with soot and muck and demon blood. Asdethara had no energy left, even as Solas cried: “Quick, disrupt the rift!”

But she did so anyway. The scabbed over rift exploded in energy, made some demons retreat to the safety of the Fade entirely and made the pride demon falter, take a knee in what could be mistaken for exhaustion. At Cassandra’s command, they focused their assault on the exhausted creature, until more demons flooded through the rift, as if in recompense. 

Asdethara cried out in her exhaustion, masking it as an angry yell as she speared a demon through the place where it’s eye should have been. It raked it’s fingers across her belly, spearing her with two before it faded back into the Veil. She doubled over, exhausted, pained, leaning on her staff in agony. Her own lifeblood soaked her trousers; her hand pressed against the pair of puncture wounds, but the tide did not stem. She was correct in her angry proclamation: she would not survive this ordeal. 

She enjoyed the bitter surge of satisfaction at denying the Chancellor his supposed right to execute her. 

Head throbbing, spinning, she cast her gaze to the rift. The pride demon was no more, struck dead and fading back into the Veil. Past the blood rushing in her ears, she heard Cassandra call out to her, beg her to close the rift. 

_“Dareth shiral, da’len,” her Keeper had whispered into the crown of her hair in goodbye. “I pray you bring us good news from this Conclave.”_

Bitterly, Asdethara smiled. Her teeth were bloodstained, her eyes wild. She looked exactly like she shemlen believed her people to be: cannibalistic barbarians, uncivilized and violent. Her hand thrust upward, she dredged the last remains of her strength and knit the Fade back together. 

Keeper Deshanna would be very disappointed at the news she would receive. 

 

* * *

 

Far below, where the people of Haven prayed to a Maker who did not hear, they watched the sky ripple again. The sour note on the air vanished as a pulse ran up the orrery to the Breach high above. Some began to cry in earnest, fearful of what was to come now. Was this the end? came a cry. Was this the Maker's final act of anger against his children?

But it was not to be.

In a flash of light, it was gone, leaving behind a ragged seam in the air and an unnatural ripple to the clouds that surrounded it. The past few hours were relegated to nothing more than a horrible nightmare.

No one knows who started the cheer, but it overtook Haven in a wave, growing in volume until the very heavens seemed to shake with their exaltations. 

And high above, in the ruined temple, the elf responsible for their salvation lay insensate on the ground, clinging to life by Falon'Din's grace alone, deaf to their praise. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations: 
> 
> melin’ha: Respected Name. Granted rarely to Dalish elves who show great affinity or promise for a specific subject, or as reward for a difficult task completed. Similar to Avaar legend marks, and claimed to have been descended from the warriors of Arlathan.


End file.
